


The Way Back

by legendofthesevenstars



Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Family, First Love, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, Identity, Multi, Psychic Empathy, Recovery, Trauma, growing as a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 10:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17547848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendofthesevenstars/pseuds/legendofthesevenstars
Summary: As a child, Allen ran away from the only home he had ever known. Since then, home has never been the same. Home can be in another country. Home can be a person. Sometimes it's a concept. Sometimes, it's completely different.Most of all, home is everything you learn and experience on the way back.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the 1963 painting by George Weymouth.

When Allen was eleven, home was the Asturian mansion where he and his sister had been born, the one his father had inherited. It was far too big for just four people, and the fact that their parents didn’t bother to bring in any help to clean the place made it even more of an adventure to explore. He and Celena made playrooms out of the disused rooms of the estate; there was so much lying around, so many treasures waiting to be discovered, and they never grew bored. In the evenings, the house seemed smaller, because they were always together; after a warm home-cooked meal, he and Celena sat on Mother’s lap by the fire, captivated by the lofty tales of love and war that Father read to them. The sprawling green meadows were home too, where Mother looked over them as they picked flowers, raced each other, and played knight and princess. Allen loved Mother, Father, and Celena. Father and Mother and Celena loved him too. And, most of all, Father and Mother loved each other.

When their friends were over, the mansion crowded with couples, sometimes everyone would slow dance, and Allen would be coaxed into dancing with someone’s daughter. Because he was expected to be polite, he would oblige, but instead of paying attention to his partner, he would watch Father and Mother. No one danced as closely as they did, staring deep into each other’s eyes, and sometimes, Mother leaned her head on Father’s shoulder. That especially made Allen feel proud that they were his parents. Dancing with the girls his age was nothing like what Mother and Father had. When Allen grew up, he would find a woman he could dance with like they did—a sincere gaze, a head lying on his shoulder, a kiss. He liked to imagine that now and then.

When Mother had been pregnant with Celena, Father had stayed close to her all the time, asking if the baby was kicking, bringing her favorite tea and a book to read and changing her flowers and swapping out pillows. In the evenings, they sat in their favorite chairs by the fire and went down lists of possible names, and Allen watched them from the other room, even though he was supposed to be sleeping. Father suggested the names in a sort of rhythm, and she answered just as quickly as he proposed each one. Father and Mother fit together perfectly, not because Allen had lived with them all his life and was used to them being together, but because they loved each other.

At least, Mother always loved him. Then, one day, Father left.

Celena was only three, so she didn’t grasp what had happened in its entirety. She did ask whether Papa was coming home, and where Papa had gone. Mother deflected the questions and retreated to Father’s study, poring over his books. Allen peeked in the door one evening when he was supposed to be in bed and saw her writing. She wrote letter after letter, but she never sent a thing. When they ate meals, there was no longer that atmosphere of quiet, happy togetherness, but a hollow feeling caused by the lacuna Father had left at the table. Mother went back to her usual self as best she could, and reminded Celena not to ask questions about Papa, because he was doing just fine, and he would be coming home as soon as he could.

Allen grew somber, too. He didn’t know where Father had gone, only that he had gone exploring, and he must have said this time that he wasn’t coming back. Usually he’d only stayed out for a few days at a time. Now it had been months. Somehow, it seemed the house was growing bigger, the meadows smaller. Father had the freedom to go where he wanted, at the cost of trapping the three of them at the mansion whenever he left.

“Why doesn’t Mama smile anymore?” Celena wanted to know after she turned four. It should have been a happy occasion. It had been a celebration, with her favorite food and cake and flowers and lots of new toys. And storybooks. Now that Allen was the one reading to her, and Mother locked herself in Father’s study, it wasn’t quite the same as it had used to be with Father’s deep, calm voice, Mother’s arms embracing them.

Exhausted from engaging with the nobles Mother had invited to the mansion, Allen wanted nothing more than to lock himself in his room and go to sleep, but if he didn’t answer her question, she would ask Mother, and that might make both her and Mother feel even worse.

He knelt down to Celena’s level. “She’s sad, because Papa left home.”

“Where is he? Why hasn’t he come back?”

Allen shook his head. “I don’t know where he is. Or if he’s ever going to come back. Mama doesn’t know either.”

“I wish I knew where he was.” She frowned. “Then we could all sit together for storytime. And maybe Mama would smile again.”

Allen looked into her big blue eyes, then drew her into a hug. “I wish I knew too,” he whispered. Why couldn’t he offer any more consolation than that? Why did it have to be such a mystery? Why had he left in the first place? Why didn’t he love his family?

The day Celena disappeared, it was completely without a trace. Unlike when Father had walked away, and he had watched him growing more distant, tears in his eyes, face pressed to the glass of the bay window, Celena pulling on his untucked shirttails. She ran into the orange setting sun and vanished, just like that. The heavens grew dark and opened, rain pouring, thunder resounding, lightning flashing, the same weather as when Father had left. He ran down the meadow and into the woods, looking high and low for her, calling her name until his throat was raw. He came home sobbing, soaked to the bone, leaves and branches caught in his hair, his shirt torn from crawling through thickets.

Mother ran a hot bath for him. She didn’t ask any more questions; instead, she untangled and washed his hair while he tried to explain, through sniffles and tears, what had happened. When he had no more energy to cry or talk and was drifting off from exhaustion, she dressed him in pajamas and set him in Father’s armchair by the fireplace, put pillows beneath his arms and head, and draped blankets over him. He fell into a daze for the next two days, feverish and nauseous. Mother stayed by him through it, wringing out a cold towel for his forehead, feeding him soup, cleaning up if he got sick. He asked to see Celena whenever he resurfaced, and she would tell him to keep resting.

Just after Allen became well and coherent again, Mother developed a cough. Sometimes she would cough so hard she would start wheezing, and she always clutched her chest with both hands. She was pale and weak: she had stopped eating a few days into her illness. After she passed out one evening while cooking dinner for him, he started looking after her. And nearly every day, he gathered the willpower to go out to the meadows to get her flowers for her blue vase, and every time she would say something like, “Oh, they’re such beautiful flowers. How thoughtful of you.” It was worth it, even if the meadows reminded him of Celena. Despite that Mother was too weak to smile, he knew the flowers made her happy.

He found the address book in Mother’s desk and sent letters to as many couples as he could. Mother’s visitors arrived with solemn faces almost every day, bringing flowers for her and food, including home-cooked meals, for him. They treated Mother just as they had before she had fallen ill, even keeping up smiles for her. But, when she fell asleep, they looked over at Allen sitting and reading in the corner of the room and whispered things to each other:

“The poor boy.”

“He must feel so alone.”

“First Leon, then Celena, and now Encia.”

“All at such a young age.”

Mother continued to get worse. When she was too weak to get out of bed, not even to make dinner for Allen, someone sent word to a doctor. He stayed at the mansion during the daytime to help Allen take care of Mother, and somehow, his presence made the house feel bigger and emptier. He was a stranger, and Allen wasn’t good with strangers. He watched the doctor from his corner, clutching his elbow with his hand, and retreated to the kitchen or to his room when he grew tired of hearing Mother coughing.

The doctor left for good after a week. He said it was to go home and visit his family, but he had given Allen a distraught look as he’d said it. He had explained to Allen that Mother had contracted pneumonia and that he might want to be careful going in to see her because it could be contagious. He’d also told Allen, “she doesn’t have much time left.” Allen didn’t know what “pneumonia” was, and he hadn’t thought to ask, but he didn’t care if it was contagious. What was more important was Mother not having much time left. He was coming in her room, and he was going to sit by her bedside.

He opened the door, pushing it aside, and walked up to the bed. Hands shaking, he lit the candle on her bedside table, and stood up on his tiptoes and pulled on the sleeve of her nightgown. She mumbled and opened her eyes, then coughed a few times and cleared her throat. She eased herself up toward the pillows off of which her head had slipped and turned toward him. Her face was thin and sallow, dark circles under her eyes. In the low light, she looked even worse.

“Oh, it’s you, Allen.” She reached out her hand and set it on his shoulder.

“Hello, Mother.”

“My dear son.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re doing better.”

“I’ll be all right. I guess, as good as I can be.”

“What’s the matter?”

“The doctor said you ‘don’t have much time left.’ Does that mean you’re—” He couldn’t say it, couldn’t even think it. He was going to be alone. So alone, in the big, hollow house.

“I lived a happy life,” she said. And smiled.

 _Smiled_.

“Celena,” he said, and felt tears welling up in his eyes. “I’ll never forget what she said to me last year.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she wanted to see you smile again.”

“Precious little girl.” She breathed in and sighed. “If only I knew where she was.” She closed her eyes. “Come here, Allen. Give me a hug.”

He complied, leaning forward until his head was at her neck. Unable to hold back his tears any longer, he began to sob in earnest.

“I want Celena back! I want Father back! I want a family again!” he cried. “Don’t go, Mother. Please, don’t leave me!”

She shushed him, stroking his hair gently. Her hand was so frail, and it trembled, cold against his skin. The doctor had been right. Mother didn’t have much time left.

When Allen was done crying, he stepped back from the bed, and said, more to himself than to Mother, “How can I stay here alone?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “You can leave after I’m gone.” There was a peculiar gravity to her words, a strange calmness. She was beginning to drift off, voice fading, eyelids fluttering.

“But this is the only home I know! Where do I have to go?”

She didn’t answer, and he didn’t have the heart to try and wake her back up. He watched her sleeping for a moment, then hugged her again and whispered “I love you, Mama” in her ear before he left.

That night, he was awoken by a sudden coughing fit. It was as if his head was being held underwater; he was gasping for air, and his head was pounding. He tried to get out of bed to go open the window, but he fell to the floor and blacked out twice.

“Mother!” he yelled in desperation, knowing that she couldn’t get out of bed anyway. He called for her a second time. Then, the pain and nausea were suddenly gone, just as soon as they had come, and he could breathe normally again. It was like he had been freed, somehow. He went downstairs to get a glass of water, then returned to his bed and fell back asleep.

The next day, he went to see Mother right away so he could tell her about the strange pain he had felt last night. He tried to shake her awake, but her hands were cold and limp, and she wasn’t breathing.

After she was buried, the couples hung around the mansion chattering in hushed voices and looking up at Allen’s bedroom. They were tactful enough not to bother him, but he watched them apprehensively from the top of the stairs. From what he could understand, every couple who volunteered to take care of him wanted to move in to the estate rather than relocating him to their homes. Mother and Father’s friends were nice enough, and he wouldn’t have to leave Asturia, but he couldn’t bear to stay in that house anymore. The emptiness was too much to bear; he felt like he might be swallowed in it.

So he ran away from home.


	2. Chapter 2

When Allen was thirteen, home, like the past, was alien to him. He had not felt at home or resided in any semblance of home since he had lived in the Schezar estate. But there was no going back there now, not only because he couldn’t gather the fortitude, but also because he was too far away.

A few days after running away from home, he had joined a group of thieves around his age and picked up a sword for the first time. Warriors and knights from Fanelia and Asturia had often featured in his and Celena’s storybooks. Tales of men who protected others and fought bravely for their country remained impressed on his mind. Not only that, but wielding a sword was, of all things, _fun_ , and it came easily to him, perhaps because his long legs made him nimbler, or because his long hair made him feel like he really was worthy of the Allen Schezar name.

Even if the world took his family, his home, everything else he loved away from him, it could never take away his hair. He had to tie it back and hide it under his cloak, of course, because his hair would give him away as the “Schezar boy,” and the last thing he wanted was to be taken back to the big, empty house. But his hair was also the last remnant of his identity as a Schezar.

Many of the Schezar men had been knights, excepting Father, who was more interested in researching the mysteries of Gaea. Father told stories about his brother, Allen Crusade Schezar the seventh, a member of the legendary Knights Caeli who had died in battle, and who had had the same long, flowing blonde hair. When Allen was six or seven, Father had begun to suggest he’d make a fine knight when he grew up, and Mother agreed. Annoyed with the constant comparisons to Uncle Allen, and eager to differentiate himself from his namesake, he told Father to stop saying it. So he’d stopped.

Now, to spite his past self, and somehow to spite Father’s expectations, Allen Schezar the eighth was going to become a swordsman. A swordsman, not a knight, and especially not a Knight Caeli. And he certainly wasn’t going to pilot a Guymelef like Uncle Allen had. If any of _that_ happened, Father would just laugh at the similarities, laugh triumphantly. He must have thought of his son’s life as an elaborate way to memorialize his brother, and Allen couldn’t let him win. He’d be his own kind of Schezar. He’d do something different with the family name, but he would always have pride in it, at least in what his namesake did. Dying to protect one’s country was far nobler than abandoning one’s family and home.

He had grown bored with easily being able to best the other boys and felt that he didn’t need them anymore. They fought constantly, arguing about the same things over and over just so they could argue. Of course, it was because they were all around twelve or thirteen, a group of five orphans sneaking across Asturia until someone decided to kill them or love them. Despite that they kept each other the best company they could, it was a cold existence, an existence that constantly reminded them how lonely they were, and it had never really felt like home. So he’d run away. Again. After a few weeks of running, he’d made it to what looked like a new country.

He was still in the woods, but he bet there were bustling markets beyond, for he could see houses and temples beyond the clearing. More importantly, there was a group of swordsmen training out here, clothed in light-colored pants and dark shirts, bodies dancing and leaping across the grass, the sweet sound of metal clanging in the air. It was pure euphoria to witness the men’s ballet, and Allen just had to join in. The men went easy on him, pretended to lose, and then sent him back to the woods, dropping morsels of money into his palms, which he eagerly stuffed into the bag he wore across his waist. Allen was still naive enough to believe that his victories were legitimate, and his arrogance only grew. When he was older, he was going to be better than his namesake, and _that_ would show Father for sure.

Then someone approached him—a sure sign that his prowess was growing—before he even left the woods one day. It was an imposing, huge, armored figure cloaked in a red cape. A real knight, or maybe a samurai. Samurai, Allen decided. With ugly scars across his face, the biggest one across his missing left eye, and gray hair and a gray mustache and beard. Oh, so he was an _experienced_ swordsman. Well, the tougher the challenge, the better—after all, he’d beat those other men without much of a struggle.

“Up for a duel, old-timer?” Allen called, waltzing out of the brush, holding his blade so its hilt rested on his shoulder, a smug grin on his face. “Don’t go easy on me!”

“You must be the boy who’s been picking fights with the local swordsmen.” Now that Allen was out in the open, the samurai really did look like a giant. He must have been at least twice Allen’s height, and his voice was deep and commanding. Allen drew himself into a fighting stance, glaring at his opponent.

“If you value your money or your life, I suggest you run away now.”

“Well, I suppose you hold a sword well enough. And you must be quite skilled to defeat all those young swordsmen. What is your name?”

“Allen Schezar.” He puffed out his chest and stood tall. “And I’ll make sure you remember it!” He yelled a war cry and lunged at the old man. Their swords clashed briefly, and before he could even blink, Allen was knocked to the ground with barely any effort. Blood pounded in his ears, and his throat had gone dry. He looked up at the samurai; the rays of the early morning sun illuminated his grizzled countenance.

“A noble effort,” he said, sheathing his sword. “Those other swordsmen let you win. But I have never held back in any battle, no matter the age or experience of my opponent, and I never will. Regardless, I was right; you indeed have a gift.”

Allen’s eyes widened. What did he mean, the boys had let him win? So he _hadn’t_ really won all those duels? Father was probably looking down on him and laughing. Uncle Allen would be right there with him, shaking his head. Allen had disgraced the Schezar name. There was no way he could go on after such humiliation. What was left for him if he had already failed as a swordsman?

“Kill me,” he whimpered.

“Excuse me?”

He looked up at the old man towering over him. “Come on and get it over with!” he spat, feeling a tear escape his eye as he spoke. Oh, this was just going from awful to horrible. Why did he have to start crying at the least appropriate time?

“We’ll have no talk of that. You’re far too young to die.”

“Don’t pity me,” Allen was about to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to be cocky and rude anymore. Instead, he confessed, “I have no home or family. This is the only life I know. How can I go on living if I lost?!”

“Wins or losses, these matter not. Even technique plays little role in your most difficult battles. A true samurai has far more important things to worry himself with. The most important of these is honing oneself, not just one’s skill with a blade. Then you will always be able to steel yourself for your most difficult battles, whether they are fought with swords or without.”

Allen gasped, his mouth open in awe. Storybooks were one thing. Playfighting with twelve-year-olds and being allowed to win by older swordsmen was another. But this was completely different. There was something in the samurai’s eyes, something in his stoic face and demeanor, that made it obvious. He knew what wielding a blade was all about. He knew what _life_ was all about.

Balgus was his name. He was from Fanelia, where Allen had ended up, and he was living in seclusion in the woods nearby in a small hut. Allen had nowhere else to go, so naturally he lived there too, with his master. The long days were full of intense training in sword-to-sword and hand-to-hand combat. Allen was an eager student, but sometimes, he did wish his master would go easy on him, if only because he needed their power to be properly balanced in order to win. Still, he remembered it wasn’t about winning, and as frustrated as he got, he had not raised his voice at Balgus since the day they’d met.

It was nice to finally be able to sleep in a real bed again. Not only that, but Allen felt safe letting his hair down, and instead of the Asturian rags he’d dressed in for the past two years, he wore loose, comfortable Fanelian clothing Balgus procured for him. Meals were combinations of vegetables, soup, and rice, with a little meat sometimes; if he never ate seafood, stew, or porridge again, he wouldn’t care, because everything he ate in Fanelia warmed his soul. Many Fanelians were farmers: it was a slow, easy lifestyle, but a tedious one. He helped Balgus tend to their small garden, and the monotonous nature of such work calmed him. The relaxation, predictability, and stability were welcome after the past two years. It almost felt like home.

The Fanelian markets were lively and colorful, and the idyllic woodlands on the border outclassed Asturia in beauty, but Allen longed to hear the calm lapping of waves on sandy beaches, smell the stink of fish hanging from stalls at the bazaar in Palas. Even if there was no reason to go back to Asturia, and it was still too painful to return, he thought of home, and of his family, often. He spent many sleepless nights crying into his pillows or staring at the leak in the roof, hearing Mother’s or Celena’s voice in his mind. Balgus left him alone, never asking any questions, and he was glad for it. Most of the time.

No one had shown Allen any affection, or any love at all, in the two years since Mother’s death, and he especially missed her hugs. Sometimes in the morning or evening he would come into the anteroom where Balgus was polishing his sword, peeling apples, or writing a letter, and cling to him from behind until he turned around and embraced him with strong, warm arms. Balgus was not particularly affectionate himself, but Allen sensed in the way his master looked at him that he would kill for Allen, and Allen felt the same way, which filled him with an energy and confidence he hadn’t known for a long time.

For three years, Balgus, and Fanelia, were home.


	3. Chapter 3

When Allen was sixteen, home was Fanelia, but home, as distant a memory as it seemed, was also Asturia, the land he had left behind, the land he had grown up in. Now and then, he missed the flowers that could only be found in Asturia, and even though her friends likely visited her grave often, Mother was probably wondering where he was. Most of all, there was the matter of the mansion. He still could hardly bring himself to think of that big, empty abyss as home, and it seemed that everything he loved had become trapped in its walls. And some part of him still believed Celena was out there and wanted to go looking for her eventually. He hadn’t seen her anywhere around Fanelia, so she must have gone another way.

Balgus, who must have noticed the longing for the sea in his student’s eyes, proposed an idea when they were in Fanelia for the Festival of the New Moon. Allen was excited to finally spend some time with Balgus, being that he was away more frequently than he had been in the beginning, helping take care of a couple Fanelian orphans. They’d had some rice wine, and the stars were beginning to come out. Allen felt warm inside, not because of the alcohol but because of that fuzzy nostalgia only Fanelia could make him feel.

“Allen, there’s something I must discuss with you,” Balgus said.

“What is it, Master Balgus?”

“Word has come from Asturia that a Knight Caeli recently retired, leaving an opening. You do know of the Knights Caeli, don’t you?”

Allen looked at his lap, spreading and closing the embroidered fan he held. Was this really his fate? To act out everything his father wanted him to? “Yes. I know all about them.”

“It’s a very prestigious order, one of the most prestigious on Gaea. A tournament will be held to determine who will fill the position. I would encourage you to participate. If nothing else comes of it, it will at least give you a chance to return to Asturia.”

“What if I said I didn’t want to go back?”

“I would presume that’s not the entire truth. Asturia is your homeland. Samurai never forget their homeland. And they fight to protect it and secure its future. So why not return?”

“But I like it here in Fanelia.”

“You could fight for Fanelia, certainly. But you would be a better warrior serving the land in which you were born. To put it another way, you have a greater attachment to Asturia than you do Fanelia.”

Allen closed his fist around the folded fan, squeezing it slightly out of shape. Then he sighed. As much as he loved it here, as much as it had become a second home to him, he knew that in the same way Balgus’ heart lay in Fanelia, his heart lay in Asturia. There was no avoiding going home, even if he wasn’t going to go to the mansion right when he arrived.

“I know you’re right, and I know I want to go home. But… I don’t want to be a knight. I just want to be a swordsman. I don’t want to have all that responsibility. I don’t want people always looking at me and seeing somebody else.” He stopped for a moment. He had never brought Uncle Allen up before. But he had to explain why he was hesitant to go.

“I come from a long line of knights, except for my father. My uncle, after whom I was named, was a Knight Caeli. He lost his life in the last war while piloting his Guymelef. When I was young, my father always hoped that I’d turn out like his brother. I hated that, because I’ve always wanted to be my own person. So that’s why I don’t want to do anything that Uncle did. Except for one thing.” He touched the back of his head. “I keep my hair long because it’s like my uncle’s. I admire my uncle because he died for his country, but at the same time, I don’t want to fulfill my father’s prophecy. So I’ve always felt conflicted about becoming a knight.”

“I see,” was all Balgus said. They fell silent and watched the firecrackers being set off.

At home, Allen gathered his clothes and few possessions together, placing them in the corner of his room. He sat on the floor, staring at the wall for a moment until there was a knock on his door. He turned around to see Balgus in the doorway, holding a pair of shears.

“Master?”

“I’m cutting your hair short.”

Allen gasped. “What? Weren’t you listening to what I said?”

“There’s no need to cling to whatever legacy you think you have to fulfill or not fulfill. Think only of Asturia. Let your love for her give you strength.”

Allen felt a brief dread. His hair meant so much to him. It symbolized his uncle’s strength and his own strength, and the Schezar name. Most of all, he had grown used to it, and it was a comfort to him. But he knew Balgus was right. For everyone else to separate him from Allen the seventh, he had to start acting like he really wanted to be his own person. And a shorter haircut could be an important first step.

The tears from the morning’s goodbye still drying on his face, Allen breathed the sea air as he stepped into Palas, following the crowd to the entry for the tournament. His nimble, acrobatic style, coupled with unexpectedly deft and aggressive strikes, took his competitors aback. He didn’t go easy on a single one of them. He thought nothing of doing Uncle Allen, or even his family, proud. It was all for Balgus and for Asturia. He placed first and was appointed to the Knights Caeli.

Though Allen was Asturian, and a few of the older Knights had likely fought alongside his namesake, the way he acted and carried himself, and even some of the idiosyncrasies of his speech, marked him as Fanelian to those who had been to Fanelia and charmingly quirky to those who had never been. They were confused by his mixed habits and less-than-perfect etiquette: he was polite, spoke in a genteel manner, and said “please” and “thank you,” but he couldn’t distinguish the dessert fork from the dinner fork, and he was clueless about kneeling to kiss a lady’s hand. Even if he was a little eccentric, there was no denying he was clearly the most talented of all of them, and especially at only sixteen, so they respected him and corrected him kindly, teaching his unorthodox habits not as jokes, but rather as opportunities to learn more about Fanelian culture, and he always obliged with a short or witty anecdote.

Since it was peacetime, most of the duties of the Knights Caeli were as castle or fortress guards. Allen was stationed at the royal castle in Palas, and he would finally have a permanent place to stay in town, at least for as long as his appointment there lasted. And that was when he met her.

Love, for Allen, had always been between family. He loved his mother and sister, and he loved Balgus. Some people felt another kind of love. Sure, your wish to protect the person more than anything was still present, but there was something else as well. That was what his parents had shared before Father had left: romantic love. And she made these feelings awaken inside him like nothing or no one else had before. Everything started when she first addressed him by name.

Allen had been doing his morning walk around the palace perimeter. Usually, the royal family stayed inside. The only one he had seen so far was the King, when he had awarded Allen the honor of Knight Caeli, and that had been from a distance. But she came up right beside him, and said, “Excuse me—Sir Allen?”

He jumped, startled, not having expected anyone to be there. “Princess!” Kneeling before her, he took her hand and kissed it, and then stood up straight again. “I don’t believe we have met, so if you could tell me your—”

His eyes met hers, and the violet shade knocked his breath out of him. They seemed to sparkle in the foggy dawn light. She had dark eyelashes that contrasted with her thick, pale blonde hair, which curled just slightly in an ethereal kind of way. And she was smiling, and her lips looked soft, her cheeks tinged with just a bit of color.

“My name?” She smiled. “Marlene. I’m the eldest Aston daughter. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sir Allen.” She had a rich, lovely voice. He wanted to be enveloped in it.

“Yes, it is certainly a pleasure,” he managed.

She looked around herself for a moment, as if checking to see if anyone was listening, then she stepped closer and lowered her voice. Allen’s heart skipped. “When I saw you at the tournament, I just knew I had to get you stationed here and get to know you better,” she said, clasping her gloved hands together. “Before that day, I cared nothing for swordsmanship. But I have never seen anyone who wields a blade like you. Even I can see that you are truly skilled and deserving of this position that my father has bestowed upon you.”

Allen’s face warmed. His heart was beating in his throat, and he had to take a breath and think before he spoke. “My deepest gratitude, Princess. Your kind words mean a lot to me. I have studied for three long years, and I can only hope that my master’s teachings show themselves in all that I do as a Knight Caeli.”

“Who was your master?”

“Balgus of Fanelia, one of the three Master Swordsmen of Gaea. He is an expert samurai, far more skilled than I.”

“Are you from Fanelia?” She narrowed her eyes slightly, as if she already recognized that he looked decidedly Asturian. That was one thing about Fanelia he had never gotten used to, was that almost no one had blonde hair: it was completely opposite from Asturia.

“I suppose I could call Fanelia a second home.” He smiled politely. “I certainly consider Balgus family.”

“But you have family here in Asturia?”

“I would rather not speak of that.”

“Then tell me about Fanelia. I have never been there. What is it like?”

His eyes lit up. As often as he was asked to talk about Fanelia, somehow he never tired of it. The words flowed quickly and easily, and his nerves eased up. Princess Marlene walked with him around the perimeter, and told him about her family, and about the latest developments in Asturia, and a little about herself. She said she liked to embroider cross-stitches, read novels, and paint landscapes, especially flowers. Her villa had a lovely garden outside of it, and he was welcome to meet her by the fountain tomorrow evening if he wished. She didn’t laugh at him or scold him if his manners slipped, and she looked into his eyes, nodded, and smiled when he talked. About an hour had passed when she went back inside, saying she had to take tea with her sisters. He hated saying goodbye to her.

When the night watch took over, freeing him to return to his quarters in town, his heart was still caught in his throat, her name on his lips and his mind, her mellow voice resounding in his ears. That night, he dreamt of walking alongside her, her slender hands in his. They talked, and she looked into his eyes, her dark eyelashes fluttering. Then, he was holding her body to his, feeling her heart beating as she leaned into him. Kissing her soft, sweet lips, her hands guiding his below her waist, pressing fingers through her dress—

He woke up with heavy, gasping breaths, hot and itchy with sweat. He threw off the sheets and undid the top two buttons of his shirt, then went to get a drink of water. What was wrong with him? His body acted like he’d never seen a girl before—they were everywhere in Fanelia, and he’d had these kinds of dreams about some of them too. But none of those girls had really approached him, and he’d never thought to give it a try on his end. Princess Marlene had been the one to come up to him this morning. Was she thinking of him? Was she dreaming of him, too?

But he didn’t think of her only in that way. In the same instant he had been amazed by her beauty, he, too, had wanted to talk to her again, to get to know her better. So he talked to her again. And again, and again.

At her villa in the evenings, they would meet at the fountain, and sit outside and talk and talk until she started yawning. She brought her paintings out and showed them, and his heart sang when she explained her process and how she made all the little details work. When she talked about her favorite books, he listened intensely to the plots. She even showed him how to cross-stitch, guiding his awkward hands to thread the characters for “heaven” in a sea-green color. And she talked about her family a lot, too, perhaps because it wasn’t a topic Allen preferred to touch on himself, all about her sister Eries, who was interested in history and politics, the musically talented one of the family, and the quiet one too, and her younger sister Millerna, who loved taking care of her dolls and playing doctor with them, and who wanted to get a pet more than anything in the world so she could look after it.

And Allen talked, too. He talked all about Fanelia and about training with Balgus, and the differences between the two countries, and the things he had missed about Asturia. He asked her small questions, topics of etiquette and propriety, and big questions, if she thought fate and destiny were real (she did—she told him all the time she thought it was fate that they had met), if she believed in gods (he didn’t and she did—they _almost_ got into an argument). But he never brought up anything about his family. He only said that he had lost someone important, and he would go traveling in search of that person one day. But he was thinking of Celena, of Father and Mother, less and less now. Aside from his duty as a knight, which was a fine distraction in itself, there was Marlene, and he had started building a bridge from his heart to hers, wanting to move into it, because she felt like home.

He looked deep into her eyes and told her, “I love you.” She said it right back. Relief rushed through him. He was happy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: depression, discussion of suicidal thoughts.

When Allen was eighteen, home lay cold and dead.

Palas had become home, as he had grown accustomed to his daily walks, guarding the castle during negotiations and diplomacy, staying at the barracks in town, visiting pubs with some of the older Knights. Marlene’s villa had become home too, and he still cherished the hours of talking and laughing and holding her hand under the starlight. With sadness in her eyes one evening, she had revealed that she was now betrothed to the Duke of Freid. A knight could not marry a princess, she explained, and he had been disappointed because the storybooks had lied to him and because she would be married to a man she barely knew and who barely knew her. But, she had said, she still loved him regardless of the arrangement, and he returned her feelings. A month before the wedding, they had made love, and he had tried his best to distance himself afterward, knowing that they both had to move on now, as much as it hurt. But he would pay for what had happened that night—tracing fingers along her curves, trailing kisses from her neck down to her navel, her eyes glistening with ecstatic tears, stray hairs being brushed away from his face as he leaned over her—with his position at the castle.

The morning of the wedding, Allen was sent to escort her outside, and she said her head was spinning and held her hand to her pelvis as they walked. Apparently, she had felt this way for about three days. She said nothing more to him, but she didn’t have to. Nearly every day since then he had been bothered by the possibility that she might be with child, knowing that, caught in the passion of the moment, he hadn’t exactly been careful. Her nausea only confirmed his fear. Then, sometime that day, someone told King Aston about Allen and Marlene. If the King had found out about their relationship earlier, he might have shown Allen some amnesty out of regard for his daughter’s feelings; now that Marlene would bear a bastard child and dishonor both Freid and Asturia, it was foolish to hope he would still retain his position at Palas.

The day after the wedding, the King relocated Allen to the border fortress of Castelo, as far away from Palas as possible while still technically being located in Asturia. Still, the King didn’t completely hate Allen, or at least he must not have hated him enough to withhold the title of commander that was awarded to him without even consulting the troops currently stationed there. He was only sixteen—what did he know about commanding anything?

But here he was, two years later, leading a motley crew of about forty. They were kind people, even if they were a bit uncivilized by Asturian standards, which made it all too obvious why King Aston relegated them to Castelo in spite of their skill. Perhaps because he was tired of the polite condescension displayed by royalty (Marlene aside) and nobles and missed being on even ground like he had been with Balgus, Allen got along well with his men and, though they weren’t matched in power, considered them his equals. His conversations with them were usually small talk like the weather and the beer they’d drunk last night, sometimes about swordsmanship and technique, and, now and then, a mention of his time with Balgus. But he could no longer bring up his past.

He couldn’t be vulnerable, not even around his second-in-command, Gaddes, with whom he was somewhat closer, and who was softer and kinder than most of the other soldiers. It wasn’t because he feared what they might say if he knew, but only that he no longer felt like he could open up to anyone. He had never had the chance to tell Marlene about his past, and he had never felt comfortable around someone like he had with her. They had seen each other as vulnerable as possible, and all that had happened was that he had disgraced her, Asturia, and Freid. At the time, they had both wanted it, wanted each other. But his love for her had blinded him. How could he call this his country? How could someone as imperfect as he was ever live up to his uncle’s legacy?

Such were Allen’s thoughts lately, virtually exiled from Asturia and from Palas as he was. He spent most of his time alone in his room, lying on his side staring into space or crying, silently. Everything haunted him: Celena, Mother, and now Marlene, all the things he wished he had told each of them. If Celena could have seen Mother smile on her deathbed. If Mother had been awake the last time he said “I love you” to her. If he could have told Marlene everything, really been vulnerable with her. It was only in dreams that he felt happy, for in dreams he was given everything he wished he still had. So he slept. Every day he napped for at least half an hour, and he would go to bed early and sleep ten hours or more. None of his men bothered him. They probably just assumed he was tired. He was, but it was more that sleep was better than the alternative, which was having to be awake.

Lying on his stomach one afternoon, head buried in his pillows, he had barely closed his eyes when there was a knock on his door. When he didn’t answer it, there was another one. After the third, more insistent knock, he sighed, disgruntled, and got out of bed, dragging himself to the door to open it. Gaddes, scratching behind his ears nervously.

“Hey, Boss, sorry if I woke you up.”

“No. I was awake.”

“I was just wondering if you were all right.”

Allen folded his arms. “Why does it matter to you whether I’m ‘all right’? I’m doing my job, aren’t I?”

“Well, sure, I guess so, but…” His expression grew stern. “Sir Allen, this is serious. I’m worried about you. We’re all worried about you. You haven’t been yourself lately. All this sleeping, staring off into space—something has to be up.”

When Allen said nothing, he continued: “I don’t know exactly what you’re going through. But I do know how it feels. There were some days I thought, maybe the world would be better off without me, but I’m still here today, and I know that my life has meaning. And so does yours, so don’t think it doesn’t, okay? You’re important to us.”

Allen felt his throat tightening. All he could do was press his lips together and look at the floor for a moment, trying to hold back his tears. Yes, those thoughts had passed through his mind from time to time. He had always given into them, let himself think the world would be better if he never existed, that everyone around him had suffered and he had done nothing. He had wondered how Marlene could believe in both fate and gods: it had always been clear to him that fate was the only god, and fate was a cruel god, tearing him from everything he loved. His life was a disaster. No one cared about him, he thought. Everyone who did pretended.

But he wasn’t the only one, he knew now, looking up at Gaddes’ sincere, anxious expression. Fate was indiscriminate and inexplicable in its cruelty, others thought themselves worthless, and life was confusing and painful.

“Even then,” Gaddes continued, “it’s not as easy as hearing it from someone else. You gotta learn to start believing in yourself again. That’s the hardest part. But we’ll be with you through it all, because we need you here. So, talk it out if you need to, call on us if you need us. It’s our job as your troops to support you.” He smiled briefly, then went back to his nervous head-scratching. “Sorry, Boss. Didn’t mean to be nosy. I just had this feeling you needed to hear it.”

Allen hadn’t forgotten his manners entirely, so he said, “Thank you. It was very kind of you to say as much to me. And very observant to pick up on my… struggles.” He crossed his arms more tightly. “Yes, I have felt this way many times in my life, but something else has always enabled me to ignore it. Lately, it’s becoming harder to ignore. So I am grateful for your offer of support toward me.”

“Everything is going to get better. It won’t be overnight, but it will happen. Trust me, I’ve been through it myself, and I know.”

For the sake of his men, and to alleviate Gaddes’ concern, Allen started trying. Trying to smile, look happier, tell himself that he wasn’t a completely lost cause. He wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about his problems, but he would pour his feelings out in letters to Balgus, and then tear them into pieces, throwing them away. It always lifted some weight off his shoulders. And instead of napping, he would spar with his men or go out to the stables and ride a horse across the open fields, coming back breathless with tangled hair. After two years, his hair was down to the middle of his back already. Soon it would fall past his waist, its rightful length, and it gave him comfort knowing it wasn’t short like it had been when he’d left Fanelia wanting to be his own person.

His old dream had been to differentiate himself from Uncle Allen. Now, he accepted his fate to carry on his uncle’s legacy. Not just the hair, and his position as a Knight Caeli, but the fact that last year, just before Allen turned seventeen, King Aston had sent a huge, gray, sword-wielding Guymelef in pieces to Fort Castelo. The ancient armor had belonged to the Knight whose spot Allen had taken, and it had been waiting for an able pilot, and Allen was as capable as anyone. Allen couldn’t hide the sparkle in his eyes when he saw it fully assembled. Really, he had always, _always_ wanted to pilot a Melef, and especially an oversized Guymelef. Dragons and gods were nothing compared to the war machines humans could craft with their own hands. That was something that still gave him a rush of joy, when he got the chance to do it—getting into the cockpit and suiting up, stomping around the training grounds like he owned the place. Unfortunately, for a while, none of his men had Melefs, so there was no one to practice against. The only way he’d get experience was if he was faced against another Knight Caeli, and he wasn’t going to be allowed near Palas anytime soon. At least, that was what he assumed.

He had had a surprisingly good day, having felt somewhat happy for once, and he went to bed early. In the middle of the night he woke with an intense, squeezing pain in his pelvis. It passed just as quickly as it came, and he stayed awake for a few minutes, still sweating, to make sure he was okay, but it didn’t come back; instead, he felt an odd lightness. He fell back asleep and woke up the next morning, having forgotten that it happened. Two days after he felt the pain, a message came from Asturia. Marlene, the Duchess of Freid, had died.

So he went back to Palas, a week later, for the service. He stood at attention, sword in hand, watching silently as her casket, sprays of flowers resting on it, passed by. The string quartet played, with Eries, her stern face hidden by black lace, on violin. Allen sat and listened to the King and then Eries speaking, staring at the cobblestone pavement, hands folded in his lap. Inside, in the great hall, they had set up easels holding her paintings and cross-stitches, with a few of her favorite books and other possessions on a side table; the Duke had brought these things with him from Freid. Allen passed by them, and when he looked away from a painting of flowers for a second, he glimpsed the Duke through the crowds, holding onto the hand of a small child with blonde hair.

Allen’s heart fell. He’d forgotten about the child. How old was he now? Three? He had barely confronted the fact that, technically, he had a son. He still wasn’t ready to face him, or to face the Duke. Maybe one day he would, but especially right now, he couldn’t. Allen’s son didn’t belong to him—his father was the Duke of Freid, and he would not grow up thinking of Asturia as his country. That aside, Allen was too afraid that he would look into the boy’s eyes and see a reflection of his and Marlene’s love for each other. The poor Duke. He didn’t deserve that.

She was buried that afternoon, and after everyone else was gone, her sisters remained, and Allen stood there, awkwardly, behind them. King Aston had requested he escort the sisters back to the castle after Marlene’s burial, so he watched as they lowered two bouquets of carnations onto her grave. From what he remembered, Eries was around his age, but Millerna, the youngest, was around the age he’d been when he met Balgus. The girls didn’t have their mother either. They knelt there, with their hands folded in prayer. How could they continue to believe in gods that let everything be taken away from them?

Then Eries whispered to Millerna, and Millerna walked toward the Queen’s grave. Eries waited until she was some distance away, then stood up and turned around. “Sir Allen,” she said curtly, without any sort of greeting.

“You told him, didn’t you,” Allen interrupted before she could start with some sort of formal introduction. Something about her gave him the feeling she didn’t expect—or want—him to kneel and kiss her hand anyway. “You told the King about me and Marlene.”

Eries frowned, and her eyes narrowed. Unlike Marlene’s open warmth, she seemed distant, almost impenetrable, and he doubted she would have been otherwise had he decided to be polite with her. It was strangely like looking into a mirror. Was that how his troops saw him?

“She told him of her own volition. And besides, my father deserves to know the truth. There’s no reason for Marlene to have hidden it for as long as she did. That aside, you, Allen, took advantage of your post to approach my sister, and that is unforgivable. He should have expelled you from the order.”

Allen’s back stiffened. Her words were like lashes on his ears—she didn’t mince anything. But she wasn’t brash. When she spoke, it was in a controlled way, as if she had been rehearsing for ages. She must have been waiting a long time to say this to him, and it _was_ true—what he had done was wrong. He had been trying to leave it behind him, and she wanted to remind him of it, remind him of his mistakes. It was only because he had been repressing his past rather than confronting it that he had been able to feel some semblance of happiness in the past few weeks. But today, he felt himself returning to his old bitterness and distance, and he didn’t _want_ to hear what he needed to hear. So if she wanted to be stark in her honesty, he was going to return it with equal animosity.

“You’re misunderstanding,” he protested. “ _She_ approached _me_. She wanted to get me stationed at Palas so that she could get to know me better. And besides, what do _you_ know about what she felt for me? Do you think you understood her better than I did?”

As soon as he said the last part, he immediately regretted it. Marlene wouldn’t want her sister and Allen to fight while standing over her grave. He had started it. But he wanted to convince Eries he wasn’t a bad person, that it wasn’t all his fault. He knew he wasn’t a bad person. His men believed in him. Marlene had believed in him.

“I know that she loved you,” Eries said, “and that is why I have not been able to forgive you. For three years, she lived with a constant reminder that she had committed an unforgivable sin out of her love for you. She suffered under that weight, especially because the Duke of Freid loved her and cared for her too. And eventually, she came to love him, perhaps more than she loved you. But you don’t _know_ that, because she resolved to stop writing to you on the day of her wedding.” Tears were beading up in her eyes; she was doing all she could to try and stifle her anger in the knowledge that her younger sister was still nearby. “Don’t you _dare_ claim you know her better than I do.”

Allen said nothing. Unable to meet Eries’ eyes, he looked down, read Marlene’s name on her grave, thinking. Then he lifted his head. “I apologize, Princess Eries. It was wrong of me to have said that. It was wrong of me to cause the royal family such pain. And even though I don’t know her better than you, I do know that she wouldn’t want us to argue over who loves her the most—you, me, the Duke, the King, Millerna. Look where we’re standing,” he said, and gestured to the grave marker. Then he said, “I don’t ask that you forgive me. I don’t expect you to forgive me, or the King or the Duke to forgive me. I know that I’m not welcome here in Palas. But please, can we agree to put this behind us for now? If at least for Millerna’s sake?”

Eries’ expression softened slightly. “I’m sorry, too. I was impolite. But you’re mistaken to assume you’re not welcome here. Yes, some things are… difficult to forgive.” She paused. “But it doesn’t matter what I feel, or what Father feels. What matters is that Marlene would have wanted you to be here. You were her first love, Allen. She loved you.”

“Thank you,” Allen said, unsure of what else to say.

Eries blinked back her tears. “It’s still impossible to believe that she’s gone. She was around my entire life, and now…”

She looked over at Millerna, whose hands were laced together behind her back, wandering through the rows of gravestones behind them.

“…now that she finally comes home after three years, it’s in a casket.”

“I know how that feels,” said Allen.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time frame for Allen and Van's visit doesn't exactly match up with canon. It's supposed to happen the night when Hitomi goes back to Earth/next day, though it sort of resulted in pushing Celena's arrival forward by a day.

When Allen was 21, home was always moving, never stable, always in flux, from one person and one place to the next. Before the war, most of the time, he was at Castelo with Gaddes and the rest, but sometimes, he was in Palas, visiting the royal family, talking to the princesses. It was a great sadness that he had never met Marlene’s family, aside from the King, while she was alive, because the princesses warmed up to him instantly. He became both close with and distant from Eries. In their correspondence especially, he could confide almost anything in her, even some of the details of his past, but at the same time, he always felt she might never truly forgive him. Millerna had been kept in the dark regarding Allen’s sin and admired him unconditionally, especially his swordsmanship. He treasured both friendships.

About a year before the war began, he found his way back to the estate, through the thinning woods and past the riverbend. He tied his horse and walked up the hill to the mansion, then kicked down the door. It had been left unoccupied, strangely; dust and debris covered the floors. Every room stank with age, and the summer sunlight had not been kind to the curtains nor to the spines of shelved books. He looked in his room first, knowing it would cause him the least pain, and all that was left was his old clothes and his childhood storybooks. He sat on the floor cross-legged for a while paging through those, looking at the colorful illustrations of Guymelefs, princesses, and knights. He didn’t open the door to Celena’s room, or Mother’s room. But he went down to Father’s study, slamming the door open. He had to see what was in there.

There were stacks of books on the shelves and messes of letters on the desk. A huge ink stain had embedded itself in the wood underneath one of the letters, and Allen sighed—that would be _impossible_ to get out. On top of the letters rested a leather journal, with _Leon_ engraved into its cover. He opened the journal and looked at the pages, but he couldn’t understand the language in which it had been written. One thing he could understand was “Atlantis,” carved into the bottom left corner of the inside cover. That stupid place again. Every book on the shelf had something to do with the Mystic Valley. Why had Father been so obsessed with it, and thought nothing of his own wife and children? Why had he left Mother and Celena alone to die? Why had he always wanted Allen to grow up to be someone else? He had never loved them. None of them. Still, something compelled Allen to pick the journal up and take it with him. When he returned to Castelo, he’d put it in his locked desk drawer with the “heaven” cross-stitch, and maybe someday he’d meet someone who’d be able to read it.

He took a couple other things from the house: Mother’s favorite necklace, an old knife of Father’s. He found the key and took it with him. He’d have to get the busted door fixed when he had the time. If no one had looted it for ten years, no one was going to loot it now.

From the moment he met Van and Hitomi and Zaibach began to attack Asturia, his life was thrown into a whirlwind. The battlefield became familiar; getting in the pilot seat of Scherazade or watching the land from the windows of the _Crusade_ filled him with the adrenaline thrill he could only get from the hum of swimmingly functioning machinery. He had little time to think of Asturia, princesses, and estates. Home was on the move.

Marlene’s death had changed him. He felt more pride in Asturia, strangely, and felt closer to his homeland than he first had when he was assigned to Castelo. Fanelia was a distant memory; he had spent enough time in Asturia to feel comfortable calling himself Asturian again. And he felt happier, in a sense. Less “happy,” but more “content,” enough that he returned to himself, acted the calm and confident way he used to, and remembered that he had a country, an order, a past, and a master to do proud. His newfound contentedness prepared him to face Chid, to bear the accusations weighed against him in Freid with dignity. And prepared him to face his father.

Even if it had not been real, even if he was only imagining Father was speaking to him, what he saw in Atlantis left him shaken, changed. Father had always loved Mother, and he had always believed in Allen and Celena. If he had come home, Allen wondered, his heart still bitter, would it have all been different? Would Celena have stayed? Would Mother have lived?

Then it all struck him at once. Had Father never left, Celena might never have disappeared. Maybe he would have been able to find her. Mother would have lived, and Allen would have grown up whole and happier. Maybe he would have still become a Knight Caeli. But he would have never trained under Balgus. Never traveled to Palas to fight in that tournament, and never met Marlene, never been sent to Castelo. Gaddes and Eries might never have known him. Or Millerna. And he wouldn’t have met Van or Hitomi. In a strange way, it was all down to Father that everything had happened the way it did. But still, neither Celena’s disappearance nor Mother’s death were anyone’s fault, and maybe it was just coincidence. Or fate.

Fate may have been cruel. But fate was also mysteriously helpful. And it always had new lessons to teach. Lessons about life. Lessons about love.

Hitomi wouldn’t judge him, he thought, because she was from the Mystic Moon. She knew nothing of Asturia or Fanelia, nothing of his name and what it meant. So he told her everything, opened up to her in ways he had never been open in person with someone before. Something about her made him spill over, made it hard for him to contain himself. He wanted to be held by her, not physically, but wanted the entirety of himself to be hers. And she never judged him. She _helped_ him. Encouraged him to believe in his own strength and believe that he was a good person. Saved him from being locked in his own mind in Atlantis. It was her belief in him that made him fall for her.

But after their awkward kiss on the bridge, the day he’d been soaked and miserable and she’d been so anxious about Millerna and the wedding, he soon realized that her heart lay elsewhere. It was painful to embrace her and feel hesitation, to know she was looking at Van with the same look Allen gave her. It ate at him, and he began to think it was his fault, that he wasn’t good enough for her, that he needed to try harder to keep her with him. But that wasn’t it. It was that Van made her happy. As much as he cared about Van, he couldn’t handle that.

The evening after they’d helped out in the Asturian countryside, he was half-asleep in a chair on one of the balconies of the castle in Palas, when a soft coo from Natal made him open his eyes. He looked over his shoulder and there was Hitomi, petting Natal, scratching behind the tufts on its head. Though she was smiling at the owl’s contented noises, there was a sadness to her expression. Perhaps thinking of what he’d said that morning. That was a huge mistake, telling her not to “run off” just because of his sick jealousy. It fed on him like an illness, made him weak. He knew he wasn’t acting like himself. But he didn’t want her to leave him.

“Hitomi?”

She looked over at him. “Oh. Hi, Allen.” She frowned. “Is there something wrong?”

“Not exactly, but you seem somewhat down yourself.”

“Well,” she looked at the ground. “there’s something I want to talk to you about. But before that, I came to apologize. I’m sorry I got mad at you this morning.”

Allen lowered his head. “No, you were right. I was being rude,” he said. “I trust that Van won’t do anything to hurt you, so it was stupid of me—”

“No, no, I understand why you said it.”

Allen looked up at her.

“I know why you were worried. It’s only natural, because, well.” Her cheeks flushed pink. In the light from the Mystic Moon, her face seemed to glow. “But, on to what else I came here for. You… don’t know me all that well, do you?” She paused for a moment, then continued, “I feel like I don’t talk very much about myself, especially with everything going on. If you don’t want me to hide anything from you, you know, I guess I should tell you about my family too.”

Allen watched her hand stroking Natal’s neck. It seemed so at ease with her. He had a brief mental image of Hitomi sitting before the fire in the mansion with Natal and a book in her lap. While he was doing what? Preparing dinner? He couldn’t picture her being a good cook. Maybe she could at least make porridge, and that was already better than what he could do, which was burning pretty much anything. Hitomi at home with him in the mansion…

“Allen? You still with me?”

He blinked. Now wasn’t the time to fantasize about domestic life. “Uh, sorry. Go on.”

“Well, I have a mother and a father. And a little brother. But sometimes he can be annoying, and he likes to pick on me. And they make me do everything around the house, and always tell us when we get in arguments that I should be the one doing this and that because I’m grown up and he’s just a little kid, and I should be acting a certain way because I’m a girl…” She went on, all about her family and her home life, and about her friends from high school and training to break thirteen seconds in track, and Allen listened, in spite of his mental and physical exhaustion. She had been right. He barely knew her. Here, and on the Mystic Moon, she led two totally different lives.

When she was done talking, she sighed deeply, and his heart twinged. She had a family to go back to. What did he have? Was that why he wanted her to stay?

“I really miss home,” she said. “Sometimes, everything just gets to be too much here.”

Home? Allen’s eyes widened. She didn’t want to be here. No matter how much she loved Van, loved any of them, she didn’t want to be here.

_Hitomi wanted to go home._

He panicked, and later that night told her about Chid and proposed to her, in a last-ditch effort to figure out if that was what she really wanted—just to go home—and to give her the last piece of him he had remaining to give. But he didn’t have to wait for her to answer. He knew. And still, it hurt when she disappeared in that pillar of light.

She had grown into the landscape of Gaea uniquely, despite her odd habits, clothes, and accent. She was just as much a Gaean as any of them, in the way that he had once been an Asturian-born Fanelian. Still, he understood. It was exactly like Balgus had said: one never forgets the country in which one was born and raised. One’s home.

Still, he missed her: her voice, her presence; the gleam of her pendant and the deck of tarot cards, the edges of which she picked at as a nervous habit; she and Van catching glances at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking, Merle sneaking up behind her to give her a noogie, her gentle laughs when she talked to Millerna and Dryden, the polite smiles she exchanged with Folken. The night she disappeared, he thought of going to the estate, but at the moment, it didn’t seem right. There was, however, another home he did want to visit. And he wanted to take Van.

“I think it’s still standing,” he was saying, yelling behind him from the front of the horse, over the noise of the passing wind. “You’ve never seen it, have you?”

Van was sitting on the horse’s rump, far back enough so that Allen’s ponytailed hair wouldn’t fly in his face. “If I knew what you were talking about, then I could say whether I have or not,” he yelled back.

Allen looked over his shoulder. Van was digging his gloved hands into the horse’s haunches, holding on with all his life, his sword banging against his hip. It wasn’t that Millerna’s old mare was especially fast. It was just that Van had gotten used to flying a huge dragon instead of riding a horse.

“Why don’t you hold onto me, you—you idiot?” Allen said, exasperated.

Van made a disgruntled noise, mumbled a sentence under his breath that ended in “jackass,” and moved his hands up to grasp Allen’s waist. Allen smirked and kicked the horse’s sides, the country blurring past them as they flew through it. Just as the dawn begun to break, it started coming into view—the little hut he knew so well, the one where he had spent three years of his life. He gasped with joy. “It’s still standing!”

“Better be,” Van muttered, climbing down from the horse. “Took me out here at the crack of dawn all this way…”

Allen ignored his mumbling, tied the horse, and walked toward the opening of the shack. The early morning sun was streaming in the windows as it always had, and the table they’d sat at was still there; even the apple-peeling knife still lay on top of it. If he closed his eyes, he could see himself lying on his back, his feet propped up on the edge of the table, holding a book high above his head, while his master sat across from him, writing letters or wrapping the hilt of one of his many blades.

He walked into Balgus’ bedroom first, and the bed lay made, the rack on the wall empty of swords, confirming that he had abandoned it quite a while ago; his books were gone too. In the room Allen had stayed in, the bed was made too, and there was something underneath the covers. He lifted them and saw the old, beaten-up practice sword, and a rush of emotions tumbled over him. He’d forgotten it when he went to Palas, and Balgus must have left it here, perhaps knowing that one day his student would come back seeking the origin of his prowess.

Van lingered in the doorway, arms folded, watching Allen. Allen stood up and met his eyes.

“Balgus lived here. And I lived here when I trained with him. This was my room. He was like a father to me. Fanelia was like my home. I will never forget anything he taught me.”

“So that’s why you brought me here.” Van spoke more calmly now, though his voice was still tinged with drowsiness. “When I walked in here, I had the feeling he had lived here.”

“It does remind you of him, just being around Fanelia, doesn’t it?” Allen asked. His face fell. Something had been weighing on him since their first fight, when he had mentioned Balgus, and realized that Van knew who he was, too. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Van looked at his boots. “He was killed when Zaibach attacked Fanelia. Impaled by a Zaibach Guymelef. I… never got to bury him.”

“I’m sorry.” Allen closed his eyes and sighed deeply. How he wished he still had tears to shed, for he would shed them all for his old master. He opened his eyes. “Do you believe in the power of gods, Van?”

“Kinda.”

“I’ve never been much of a believer myself, because I’ve always felt fate was the only god, at least in my life. But I remember an old Asturian legend. When someone you love, really love, dies, you can feel it. The night before I found you and Hitomi, I woke up and there was a sharp pain through both of my sides, like someone had impaled me with a claw or something. Then it passed.” He paused for a moment. “I just felt you should hear that. Do you believe in things like that?”

Van lowered his head. “I can’t say I’ve ever felt someone’s death. But I believe you, because I know what you mean. It’s strange, but sometimes, I can feel Hitomi’s pain. Her anger, her happiness and sadness. I can hear and feel all the things that she feels. Like with me and Escaflowne, where our souls are bonded, and I feel what Escaflowne feels.”

A silence passed between them for a moment. A variety of expressions were playing on Van’s face. Van could understand her feelings. She could understand his. There was really no doubt in Allen’s mind now: she loved _him_.

Allen said slowly, “Hitomi… really wanted to go home, didn’t she?”

Van lifted his head with a sad smile. “I’m glad. I’ve wanted to get her home since I first met her. I made her a promise, and she made it back safe.”

“Do you think she’s happy now?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if she wants to come back. Maybe she’ll stay there forever. It is her home, after all. I mean, I wouldn’t know, because I don’t have a home to go back to.”

“It’s so important,” Allen began, “having a place you can always return to. When I couldn’t bear to go back to the house I grew up in, this became my home.” He gestured to the walls. “She wanted a place that was familiar to her. A place where she felt comfortable…” He trailed off. “You know, I think that place is not just the Mystic Moon.”

“Where is it?”

“Well, I said ‘place,’ but sometimes, home is with a person. I think Hitomi has become your home. And you’re her home too.”

“Oh.”

A silence passed between them for a moment. It was appropriate they were here in Balgus’ home—back when he was conflicted about returning to Asturia, he had told Allen not what he wanted to hear, but what he needed to hear. There were many things Van needed to hear. Van needed to stop acting like he wasn’t in love. Maybe he could fool Hitomi, but he couldn’t fool Allen.

“So are you going to go to the Mystic Moon?” Allen said finally.

“Yeah. I’ll go back. I have to see her one last time.” He shuffled his feet. “Um, Allen… about what you told me the other day—”

Allen waved his hand. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I wanted her to stay here, but… that was selfish.”

“But you still love her.”

“That may be true. But I need to learn not to lean on someone else. Whether she stays there or comes back here, it’s her choice. Yes, I’ll admit, I’m going to miss her. She taught me so much that I wouldn’t have learned without her. She changed me. And she changed you. Everyone teaches us something. But not everyone belongs with everyone else. Her place is with you. Not me.”

Van smiled. “Thanks, Allen. And thank you for taking me here. You know,” he eyed the sword at Allen’s hip, “I think, in honor of Balgus and everything he taught both of us, we should have one last duel.”

Allen stepped into the anteroom, Van following him. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. As long as it’s outside, of course. There’s not enough room in here. I learned that the hard way.” He pointed to a deep cut in the wall beneath the window. It was as if the wall itself had a scar. Van laughed.

The grass was cool with dew; the early morning skies broke open, a revelation of light. Allen breathed in and closed his eyes, straightening his spine. With his eyes shut like this, he might imagine it was he and his old master, he and one of the Knights, he and Gaddes about to duel. Everyone he had ever dueled flashed before his eyes, just before he opened them.

He wouldn’t tell Van, wouldn’t embarrass him like that, but Van might just have been his favorite opponent of all. It was always an act of self-discovery to duel someone who was still developing his style like Van. But it was against someone who had both talent _and_ courage, those very same things that had made Allen who he was. Most of all, Van was an absurd mirror into which he looked and saw his sixteen-year-old-self, in another time, at another age, fighting for another country, in love with someone else. They were kindred spirits. Did Van recognize that, too?

“Come at me,” Allen said, drawing his sword and standing tall. “And don’t hold back!”

Van yelled a war cry and charged at him.


	6. Epilogue

When Allen was 22, home was the Asturian mansion where he and his sister had been born, the one his father had inherited. He took up permanent residence in the estate after the war ended. There was no other place to go. Not Castelo, because it was gone, not Palas, because he had moved on from it, not Freid or Fanelia. His men returned to their homes, Van and Merle returned to Fanelia, Millerna to Asturia, Dryden to wherever he was flying next. And Hitomi was back on the Mystic Moon. Everything should have felt right. But it wasn’t.

It felt wrong, everything being so peaceful and settled like this. Sure, Celena wasn’t exactly how he’d expected her to be when he found her. Dilandau hadn’t resurfaced yet, which was a relief, but she was a square Zaibach peg in round Asturian holes. Everything about her seemed to say that she wasn’t really Asturian-born, even if it wasn’t obvious that she was a child soldier and victim of Fate Alteration experiments with a fractured, dual sense of self, and it pained him to see her struggle and experiment with her identity not just because he sympathized, but because he understood, knew what it was like to be lifted suddenly out of one life and thrust into another, because it was all he had been undergoing his entire life too.

Being open with Celena seemed like the obvious thing to do. Hitomi had taught him there was no shame in hiding anything about himself. Celena took all of it with a straight face, the revelation that both Mother and Father were gone, that Allen had had an affair and a child. And he filled in the gaps in her memories from the past year, too; because she was used to seeing him and Van as enemies, it was helpful to hear their side of the story.

“What are you going to do about Chid?” she asked him. “Are you going to go to Freid and look after him? He’s still so young.”

Allen shook his head. “Freid is his home. There’s no reason for me to go there. Besides, he’ll be fine. He’s got the court to support him and his people to help him rebuild. I know he can do it. After all,” he paused, “he’s got that Schezar stubbornness, just like his father and his grandfather.” The same headstrong nature he had recognized in Dilandau even before he knew, he thought. “And his _real_ father, he passed his courage down to him.”

“I see. But what about Hitomi? Do you still love her?”

What about Hitomi indeed, he thought. It was hard to confront himself honestly about what he had felt for her. Because it had been so different from Marlene. Perhaps that was what had made his heart bloom while it lasted, and perhaps that was why he was still flourishing now. She would never know the strength she had given him, and how she had made him realize how important it was sometimes to just _go home_.

“Maybe,” was all he said, and shrugged with a content smile. “But it doesn’t matter.” He looked out the window, half-expecting to see another pillar of light flash before his eyes. Everything was going to go back to normal. Somehow, he missed the abnormal. But not enough that he couldn’t be happy with slow, long days.

At least the mansion was far less dusty now. Once Celena had been feeling well and present enough to receive company, he retrieved Mother’s address book from her desk and sent out letters, and they entertained the couples in the spacious mansion. That required a lot of cleaning up, including tidying Mother’s room and Father’s study. It was still hard to go in her room, even ten years later. He washed the sheets and made the bed, and he put flowers in the old blue vase every week.

He would sit at her desk to write letters, sometimes to Father and sometimes to Balgus, all about everything he wished he could have done differently, all the regrets that still hung on his mind. Those he tore into pieces and threw away, but more often he would find himself writing to Eries or Millerna, or to Van, and he always sent those letters. He hadn’t figured out how to send mail to the Mystic Moon, so instead he would ask Van if he’d talked to Hitomi lately. Once, he started a letter to Chid, intending to tell him the truth, but he couldn’t finish it. It lay curled in a pigeonhole, the edge of the paper staring him down whenever he went to write someone else.

When he was sitting at Mother’s desk, he felt comfortable, like he could be open with the person, dead or alive, whom he was addressing. Her presence seemed to linger in the air like the dresses still hanging in her closet. He couldn’t bear to get rid of any of her dresses. They were old-fashioned, with big, ornately-embroidered sleeves, a relic of an earlier Asturia, hand-me-downs from her family. Everything else in that house was related to the Schezars. It might be nice to keep something of the Beaumonts around.

One difficult evening he was unable to sleep, knowing that last night she had woken up screaming names again. Because Van had killed her subordinates and killed the other soldier, Jajuka (the one who, Allen had learned, had looked after her while she was in Zaibach and whom she missed most of all), because Zaibach had driven needles into her when she tried to fight to the surface, she suffered. Eyes foggy, he went down to Father’s study and opened the drawer he hadn’t looked at yet. Most of the papers were letters, but they were too faded to read. There was something larger that had been folded up. On the outside, it read, _Family Tree._ Oh. He’d never seen it. He didn’t even know that this had been in Father’s desk. He unfolded it and followed the lines with his eyes.

There he was, near the bottom of the page, listed as _Allen Crusade Schezar_. No _VIII_ , which was odd. Next to him, _Celena Phoebe Schezar._ Above them was _Encia Alva (Beaumont) Schezar_ and _Leon Stefan Schezar_. Encia had two siblings: a sister, Eline, and a brother, Theodore. Allen’s eyes flicked over to his father. Leon had no siblings. His parents were Lucretia and Solomon Schezar. Following the line up further, he didn’t see a single name beginning with an A. His father had no brothers, and there was nobody else named Allen in his family tree. That meant Uncle Allen was… _fake_?

His heart was thumping in his ears. Father had _made Uncle Allen up_? And all the stories about coming from a long line of knights, and that he was the eighth? And he had told Balgus all about Uncle Allen, too, which made him feel even more stupid. He had believed Uncle Allen was real for his entire life. Had Father even known that Allen had believed him and that he’d taken it seriously, and that he’d done everything Uncle Allen had done, and walked in his footsteps? In an _imaginary_ person’s footsteps?

But… maybe it hadn’t been Father being selfish, wishing that he had amounted to more in his life and trying to live vicariously through Allen. Father had been there since Allen was born and had stayed with them until he left to find the Mystic Valley. Father knew Allen had always liked the storybooks with knights and Guymelefs in them. Father had been telling him, in his own roundabout way, to go after his dreams. Father had been telling him to do what he wanted, to be himself. Father had done _that_ for him? It was hard to process, and it brought tears to his eyes for the first time since he’d been re-reunited with Celena on the battlefield.

Father had always wanted this for him. He had wanted Allen to know what it was like to go on his own journey, and have his own experiences, make sacrifices and hard choices, feel the pains and joys that life brought. Father wanted him to live, go on no matter what happened, change people and be changed because of them, fall in love and out of it, make friends and find his family. And one day, when it all ended, he would come home, the way back that Father had not been able to take.

Allen Schezar had called many places and people home. But somehow, he had always known he would come back to the country he loved and grew up in, the country where he first gazed upon vibrant illustrations of war in storybooks, picked on swordsmen, joined the Knights Caeli, fell in love with Marlene, was supported by his knights, and met Hitomi and Van. Asturia was the land where almost everything had happened. Parts of him lay in Fanelia and in Freid, and a little bit with the girl from the Mystic Moon. Home would never be perfect, and it was ridiculous to expect as much after the life he’d had. But home was always just enough, and he picked up pieces of it wherever he could find it, until his heart swelled with all that he had ever known, like the wind in his hair on the back of a horse on the way back to Asturia.


End file.
